• Thanos’ forces have attacked the Earth, but what part of his plan involves the super youth of the world?

• See the attacks on the Avengers Academy, Jean Grey School, Future Foundation, Braddock Academy, Wakandan School of Alternative Studies, the Pan-Asian School for the Unusually Gifted and the Latverian School of Sciences!

• The students at all of the world’s super schools try to put into play everything they’ve learned as they fight side-by-side with their super teachers!

I thought Infinity was a bit dodgy at first, but I've come to enjoy it a lot. It's a huge space opera epic in the vein of the Kree/Skrull War, just modernized. The only things that bug me at this point are that the Builders are still a big question mark with nearly no development and the fact that the Thanos component of the story feels a little tacked-on and unnecessary.

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I bought Infinity #1 back when it first came out, but never got round to reading it. That, combined with all this talk about how you needed to read The Avengers and New Avengers, made me decide not to bother with getting the rest of the series.

But after hearing constant talk about how great it's been, and due to me highly enjoying Hickman's work on The Manhattan Projects and East of West, I decided on a whim to pick up Infinity #2-#5 last night. Between last night and this morning, I read all 5 issues, and I absolutely love it. Epic storytelling, with a focus on aspects of the Marvel Universe I'm not too accustomed to reading about, it just feels like an exhilarating breath of fresh air. It's of a far higher standard than the crossover events that Marvel or DC have been putting out in recent years, in that I can imagine people actually revisiting this years from now as a classic story once it's collected as a complete graphic novel rather than it just being an utterly disposable point-A-to-point-B status quo realignment exercise that people follow for the sake of completism then discard when the next event comes along. I'd say it's at least the best Big Two crossover event since Final Crisis.

As far as needing the tie-ins go, I don't. I've made it a point of not being suckered into buying event tie-ins I wasn't planning on buying anyway because "I need the full story." And for the most part I've found myself able to enjoy the complete story of an event without needing the multitude of ancillary guff lumped in with it. But here it does seem like the Avengers/New Avengers threads are of more central importance. Still, I don't feel like I've missed out on the key beats of the story, and if it does occasionally result in leaps forward in the action between issues, that actually works as a storytelling.

It makes Infinity less about the actual battles than the decisions behind them, with these becoming the pivotal moments while the actions that follow are just foregone conclusions. I don't need to see in exhaustive detail how Thanos' forces laid waste to Earth: the crucial moment is when The Avengers chose to go off-planet and leave it unprotected. I don't need to see the massive battles that resulted in the tide being turned on The Builders: the key moment is seeing one of them fall, and the psychological impact it has on the various forces of the galaxy that are battling them.

In a lot of ways, this kind of reminds me of a superhero Lord of the Rings, the books, with its largely off-page battles, and even it's very own "Scouring of the Shire" in Thanos' conquest of Earth. I've seen some people anxiously awaiting the Builder thread and the Thanos thread to converge, but I don't think it really needs to: the "while the cat's away" aspect of Thanos laying siege to a vulnerable Earth is suitably compelling in itself. And though I've never read much in the way of Inhumans stories before, this event has made me a fan.

So, in short, Jonathan Hickman has scored again, as have artists Jim Cheung, Dustin Weaver and Jerome Opena. Excellent event storytelling. Though I feel like I can't read any more of Forever Evil now with how much it suffers in comparison.

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I thought Infinity was a bit dodgy at first, but I've come to enjoy it a lot. It's a huge space opera epic in the vein of the Kree/Skrull War, just modernized. The only things that bug me at this point are that the Builders are still a big question mark with nearly no development and the fact that the Thanos component of the story feels a little tacked-on and unnecessary.

I'm starting to think that the whole Builder conflict was just to keep the Avengers occupied off-Earth long enough for Thanos to sneak by. It seems like a very convoluted way to stall for 4 or 5 issues and unnecessary like you said. At this rate, the whole event should have been 3 issues, max.

Totally digging this event, been reading all the tie-ins and love every issue. Some very awesome artwork too

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I just read the latest issue of Avengers that just tied in and holy **** that was amazing, I would love a comic with just the team of Annihlus, Gladiator, K'rlt and Ronan just travelling around the universe after this trying to bring peace to each others respective kingdoms. It would be awesome.

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Originally Posted by Anubis

I like love stories. Preferably the love stories that involve a woman without enough money to pay the pizza man, so she has to pay for it....with her vagina.

I'd read the crap out of that. Bring in Kid Gladiator for the fun/heartfelt father/son plots, which could also bring out K'rlt's softer side as a man who has lost a son.... which could also lead into his having ditched his daughter.

There are plots there!

And considering the story line and how Avengers is now considered in high regard cosmically, Cosmic Avengers would kinda fit (though I'd personally hate it).

I'd read the crap out of that. Bring in Kid Gladiator for the fun/heartfelt father/son plots, which could also bring out K'rlt's softer side as a man who has lost a son.... which could also lead into his having ditched his daughter.

There are plots there!

And considering the story line and how Avengers is now considered in high regard cosmically, Cosmic Avengers would kinda fit (though I'd personally hate it).

Glad I'm not the only one that thought this way. I think there is some serious potential.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Anubis

I like love stories. Preferably the love stories that involve a woman without enough money to pay the pizza man, so she has to pay for it....with her vagina.

Really? I hear WAY more about Superior and DD than Bendis or the X-Men these days.

And personally, while there were good parts, I felt Infinity 6 was underwhelming. And Thanos' fall was horribly underwhelming. I mean, look back at the series and Thanos didn't actually do squat. Well, he did fight with Blackbolt, but other than that, nothing. He was very underwhelming. Compared to his feats from Annihilation backwards, this was a pale comparison to his previous portrayals. And even his defeat was a bit of a rip off of a previous defeat. While I'm sure it was meant to be a homage, the fact that it was done off panel by someone who has not really been built as any sort of character (yet) was horribly underwhelming.

I know people around here seem to think Infinity has become the holy grail of events, but this was a very lackluster story with some neat moments. No character development, no clear plot thread, no real anything resembling a well crafted story. It was just two stories discombobulated into an event that didn't really do anything in the end safe show a few heroic moments against some no name villains, and one named villain acting boring.

One thing I will praise, and I will only praise this a little, is that 2 maybe 3 of Thanos' generals became interesting by the end and could become interesting individual villains down the road. Also the art was always top notch.

But having read the entire event, I'd say this was one of the worst. I have been saying that it wasn't as bad as AvX, but I'm starting to question really. It's at least in that category. Of modern events: House of M, Civil War, Secret Invasion, Siege, Annihilation, Annihilation Conquest, War of Kings, and Thanos Imperative were all better without question. Fear Itself and AvX are closer to this event, but I'm not sure if they are worse. While character portrayals were worse, the stories were at least more entertaining and had a clear direction. But at least it was better than Battle of the Atom.

Infinity, in my opinion, was a mess. The Builders were built up to be this HUGE threat but turned out to be no different than any other race. We had multiple Mcguffin wins like with Starbrand and Thrane. We had one of the greatest villains of the Marvel Universe in a role that could have been plugged in by just about anyone else. We had so many characters that not a single one got any decent character growth (except for maybe Starbrand and Ex Nihlo... and both of those were fairly minor).

I could go on but it'd get boring if it isn't already. This event sucked, and I can't help but wonder it's only because of the "at least it isn't Bendis" kool-aid that's making people claim otherwise.

Infinity was by no means a perfect storyline. My main criticisms are there was never any sense of urgency and the story lacked any personal interactions between characters.

I would have rather seen Thane make a stronger decision at the end by killing his father instead of putting him in suspended animation and establishing him as a big giant question mark for the Avengers going forward. Now the Illuminati have Thanos so he can be the boogeyman for the Avengers, lurking in the background for the next few years.

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Originally Posted by C. Lee

This is a message board...no one killed your mother or had sex with your dog.....try to move on in life.

I actually did like that the Illuminati have Thanos (and the blue chick), as that could lead to interesting things. But Thanos has been "killed" in 2 o the past 4 cosmic events. Killing him again would be boring.

The one thing that I do find interesting in all this is the curiosity of what will become of the General who went off with Thane. I thought he was a very interesting character. I'm glad he lived. Also, Maximus had a pretty awesome moment in the issue.

Now that it's over, I can confidently say that I didn't really enjoy this "event". Hickman gets points for effort, such a massive story must have been tough to string together.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JewishHobbit

And personally, while there were good parts, I felt Infinity 6 was underwhelming. And Thanos' fall was horribly underwhelming. I mean, look back at the series and Thanos didn't actually do squat. Well, he did fight with Blackbolt, but other than that, nothing. He was very underwhelming. Compared to his feats from Annihilation backwards, this was a pale comparison to his previous portrayals. And even his defeat was a bit of a rip off of a previous defeat. While I'm sure it was meant to be a homage, the fact that it was done off panel by someone who has not really been built as any sort of character (yet) was horribly underwhelming.

Completely agree. So much stuff with the Builders etc when it should have focused on Thanos.

Yeah, a very lackluster event all around. The builders were all hype but turned out to be nothing interesting. They just seemed like any other race and had almost no personality/culture of their own.

The Thanos plot-line was a certainly the better one. However, aside from the Black Bolt fight, it was rather lackluster as well. Almost any other cosmic villain could have served the role. Furthermore, the final fight was a mess. Thanos pretty much just stood around (too often characters just stand around in these big fights) and took out Thor before losing in the most underwhelming way possible.